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Private Flats & Houses for Short Rentals TOLL FREE: 1-8007489783 TEL: 011-44 171 5848914 FAX: 823 8433 E-Mail: homefromhome@compuserve.com Internet: . . . .homefromhome.co.uk adviser at the slightest sign of upset, and she's efficiently in touch with her feelings. (To update the game in which participants downed a shot of booze every time someone said, "Hi, Bob!" on "The Bob Newhart Show," I suggest that viewers have a belt every time Fe]j- . " I ' 0 K . h h " ) CIty says, m . . WIt tat. "Felicity" has been touted as this year's "Dawson's Creek." In addition to featuring sweet-faced young men who have thoughtful hair, the shows share a muffled, draggy dramatic quality. The kids in these teen-noir series all have a slightly swollen look, as if they'd had an allergic reaction to life, and they are all in dead earnest-you search their faces in vain for a sign of an interestingly wicked, inappropriate, funny thought. Even the resident adviser in Felicity's dorm, a Robby Bensonish sensitivo with big wet eyes and bee-stung lips, tests negative for cynicism. Being young may not be all that funny, but when the R.A. says to Felici who by the end of the first episode is thinking about going home, "Stay in New York or perish," you can't help wishing that some sophomoric smart-aleck would bop into the room and say, "Can't I do both?" I N a season in which the new com- edies feature enough idiotic sec- ondary characters to repopulate both Hooterville and Gilligan's Island several times over, "Will & Grace" is notable for having one of the few keepers. His name is Jack; some would say he's flam- boyantly gay, but calling him anything less than a flaming queen would be do- ing him an injustice. Sean Hayes plays this character-the boyishly buzz-cut, sneaker-wearing version of the stereo- type--with relish, good timing, and the kind of perpetually wounded amour propre that great comic characters are made of: (This was the kind of shtick that Phil Hartman was so good at- playing someone who actively invites others to deflate his ego, so that he may have the pleasure of reinflating it.) Seeing a character like Jack on TV- a character who doesn't know the meaning of the words "Don't ask, don't tell"-makes me wonder: Why hasn't there been a peep of protest? What about the children? What about family values? Where are all the "Ellen" -bashers of last year? Focussed on the doings at the White House, I suppose, or perhaps simply worn out from the past season's condemnation spree. Whatever your feeling is about gay characters on TV, you'd have to agree that this parti- cular show needs Jack. His delightful narcissism aside, "Will & Grace" is a mostly dronelike affair. It's set in the more bourgeois quarters of New York: Grace's office (she's an interior designer) is in the Puck Building, and Will's apartment is on Riverside Drive. The ampersand in the title isn't insignificant: these two-handsome professionals in their early thirties, and best friends since college-aren't a couple, technically, but they constitute a partnership nonethe- less. He's gay and single, she's straight and single, and theirs is a relationship that many women in this city have had with a gay friend: a Manhattan mar- riage. In the scene that opens the first episode-a scene that tricks us into thinking they are a couple--they are in their separate apartments exchanging pillow talk on the phone. You have the sense that they end each day with this enviable (if telephonic) intimacy. They discuss "ER," Susan Lucci, and Bed Bath & Beyond, and when one of them talks, the other one pays attention. The writing in this show, in which brand names and references to celebrities are meant to speak volumes about the char- acters, is, I think, directed at tuppies- tired urban professionals in their late thirties and early forties, who suppos- edly want their undemanding enter- tainment larded with references to other undemanding entertainment, like lumps of cookie dough in vanilla ice cream. (I'm counting the episodes until some- one mentions Alexis and Krystle's catfight in the pool in "Dynasty.") In addition to being insulting in its assumption of complacency, "Will & Grace" is a little out of date. Women in New York have long complained that all the men here are either married or gay. But gay men, at least, used to be avail- able; relationships with them may not have been sexual, but they were of- ten truly romantic. These days, though, your best gay male friend of a certain age is more likely to be spending his free time picking out towels with his mate or going to their Jack Russell's obedience- school graduation than he is to be hanging out with you. It's official: there really are no available men in New York. Now all the gay men are married, too..